FATHER OF THE CUP John Gaines envisioned an international racing event that became the Breeders’ Cup World Championships By John Eisenberg WILLIAM STRODE 42 SUMMER 2015 K KEENELAND.COM KEENELAND.COM K SUMMER 2015 43 father of the cup JOHN HAD VISION. I don’t knoW AN AWFUL LOT OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE WHAT HE DID.” –Joan Gaines But Gaines gave a speech that changed horse racing in well Gluck Equine Research Center. His art collection included paintings America, outlining his vision for a championship day of by Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, and Leonardo da Vin- racing, a Super Bowl-style event comprising seven lucra- ci. When he built new barns at Gainesway in the early 1980s, they won tive races for horses of different ages and sexes, all run prestigious architectural design awards. at the same track on the same day while being televised “John had vision,” Joan Gaines said of her husband, who died in 2005. I around the world. don’t know an awful lot of people who have what he did. He could get an “I have personally spoken to virtually all the prominent idea, like for the Kentucky Horse Park or the Breeders’ Cup, and under- breeders in this country and several in Europe, and to a stand what it would mean 25 or 30 years down the road. It’s an aptitude man they have endorsed the program as a means of our and he had it.” industry helping itself,” Gaines said in his speech. Of Gaines’ many big ideas, the most lasting — the one for which he There would be races for juveniles, turf races for both became best known — was the one he brought up in that 1982 speech sexes, a sprint, and a distaff race, all with $1 million purses. at Churchill Downs. The Breeders’ Cup has become a landmark event The all-day spectacle, to be known as the Breeders’ Cup, on racing’s calendar. Held every year in late October or early Novem- would culminate with a $3 million “classic” race, open to ber, it has grown into a two-day, 13-race festival that attracts the world’s all ages and sexes. top juvenile and older male and female horses. A victory in a Breeders’ On their drive back to Lexington that afternoon, Joan turned to her husband and said, “Well, that was a pretty WILLIAM STRODE good idea, John. How long have you been thinking about A visionary in many endeavors, John Gaines developed Gainesway Farm into a stallion it?” powerhouse. “Oh … three years,” replied Gaines, then 53 years old. A slender chain-smoker with a sharp tongue and dark eyes that blazed with intensity, Gaines was known in the oan Gaines didn’t sense history in the making on the morning of Bluegrass as a bold, outside-the-box visionary with a mind April 23, 1982, as she and her husband, John, and their 14-year- that worked on the grandest of scales. The only son of a old-son, Thomas, drove from their home in Lexington toward New York businessman who bred champion trotters and Louisville. made a fortune with dog food and Florida real estate, he J had already blazed trails on several fronts. John Gaines, owner of Gainesway Farm, brought up that day; I had no ideas he was He had taken Gainesway, his father’s standardbred the world-class commercial stallion sta- even thinking of it,” Joan Gaines recalled breeding operation, and made it into a Thoroughbred co- tion on Paris Pike, was scheduled to speak years later. “He was a very interior person. lossus, expanding its stallion roster from zero to 50 in two that day at the Kentucky Derby Festival’s He would just mull things.” decades, putting him on equal footing with iconic breeders OHN “They’re Off” luncheon, an annual event When Gaines took the microphone in such as Spendthrift Farm’s Leslie Combs II and Claiborne S TER opening the Derby season. But Gaines gave the Pegasus Room at Churchill Downs, the Farm’s Arthur “Bull” Hancock. He had also conceived the S a lot of speeches and had not indicated this audience consisted mostly of journalists in idea for the Kentucky Horse Park, endowed a center for the PIETER E one would be memorable. town to cover the Derby. The place was not humanities at the University of Kentucky, given generously Gainesway Farm’s award-winning architecture became recognized the “He had never before mentioned what he anywhere close to packed. to the university’s art museum, and helped fund the Max- Thoroughbred world over. 44 SUMMER 2015 K KEENELAND.COM KEENELAND.COM K SUMMER 2015 45 father of the cup Cup race is often viewed as a career-defining achievement. Before he went public with the idea in the early 1980s, Gaines had discussed it pri- vately with supporters such as Nelson Bunker Hunt, a wealthy Texas breeder, who was all for it. But there were no guarantees it would ever become a reality. In a sport rife with infighting and conflicting agendas, lacking a powerful commissioner, getting anyone to agree on anything was a challenge. “There was no way to just gain a consensus,” Gaines’ BERHARDT son, Thomas, said years later. E NNE M. NNE M. “Dad’s thought was, ‘I’m just A going to spring this on an un- Hollywood Park served as the host racetrack for the inaugural Breeders’ Cup. suspecting world,’ because the only way to make it happen years wrangling with other breeders, racing as- by major events. Baseball had the World Series, was to announce the idea and sociations, television executives, and racetrack football had the Super Bowl, and college basket- let it gain its own momentum.” officials, trying to get them on board. His diplo- ball had the Final Four. Racing already had the After he went public with it matic wiles were tested. Anyone could see the Triple Crown, and there was room for anoth- in 1982, he spent the next two merits of the idea. The sports world was ruled er big, attention-getting event. But who would pay for it? Where would it be held? Who would broadcast it? There were as many questions as answers, it seemed. Gaines devised a blueprint that included a Breeders’ Cup fund, which would effectively underwrite the event. Breeders would contrib- ute a flat fee for each Cup-nominated foal and also donate one stud fee per season from every Cup-registered sire. The fund would then return some of the money to tracks to increase purse sizes and create prestigious races during the year. Meanwhile, the Breeders’ Cup itself would rotate from track to track to keep various racing associations happy. “And then he got the ‘powers that be’ at NBC HOTO LIBRARY HOTO P E to embrace the idea,” Thomas Gaines said. “Once S OR H he had TV committed to it, he had something.” LOOD- B Gaines’ most daunting obstacle was gaining Though Gaines had to step away from the Breeders’ Cup to bring it to fruition, he the support of several pillars of the breeding continued to influence the event’s development. 46 SUMMER 2015 K KEENELAND.COM father of the cup establishment, his chief rivals in the battle to October afternoon in 1984 at Hollywood Park stand top stallions. In building Gainesway into in Southern California. The grandstands were a powerhouse, he had made his share of ene- packed. The betting totals set records. NBC’s mies. Most signed on to support the Breeders’ cameras beamed the races around the world. Cup, but several didn’t want to participate as America’s sports landscape had a new marquee long as Gaines was involved. day. “The 64,254 spectators who showed up at “My father was powerful but polarizing,” Hollywood Park on the most beautiful day imag- Thomas Gaines said. “The people he was work- inable could elect to ogle either seven of the run- ing with were the same people whose brains ners who ultimately won Eclipse awards or such he was bashing in competing to stand horses luminaries as Frank Sinatra, Gregory Peck, Cary at his farm. The Breeders’ Cup began when a Grant and Fred Astaire,” Sports Illustrated racing bunch of fierce rivals agreed to collaborate.” journalist Whitney Tower wrote. “Sinatra sang at IKE CORRADO Gaines was so polarizing that he resigned M the gala the night before the races, and Astaire’s from the event’s board of directors to make Gaines helped create the wife, the former jockey Robyn Smith, was part of sure it came to fruition. But he was on hand Breeders’ Cup trophy. the NBC crew that covered the doings in an un- when the Breeders’ Cup debuted on a sunny precedented four-hour live show.” SODWORKS Call for a custom quote! 859294.4763 www.sodworksky.com Services include: ◆ Sod cut to order ◆ Pick-up and Delivery ◆ Finish Grading and Sod Installation Family Owned and Operated Fully licensed and insured 3000 Georgetown Road / Paris, KY 40361 / Fax: 859-988-0904 / [email protected] 48 SUMMER 2015 K KEENELAND.COM father of the cup Although Gaines was WHAT MADE HIM no longer in the event’s decision-making appa- A GREAT MAN IS HE ratus, his fingerprints were all over it as it Wouldn’t JUST COME quickly developed into a racing institution. UP WITH THESE IDEAS, He even had a hand in developing the ecorche HE WOULD MAKE THEM replica that serves as the Breeders’ Cup trophy. HAPPEN.” When the second Breeders’ Cup was held IBRARY –Thomas Gaines in New York in 1985, L HOTO HOTO NBC’s broadcast was P E S OR seen in 40 countries.